SEIZE: Scalable and Efficient Zero-configuration Enterprise Architecture

Scheduled for 10:00am, May 15, 2007

Abstract

Most conventional enterprise or campus networks consist of Ethernet-based IP subnets interconnected by routers. Although each subnet runs with minimal (or zero) configuration by virtue of Ethernet's flat-addressing and self-learning capability, interconnecting subnets at the IP-level introduces a significant amount of configuration and management overhead on both end-hosts and routers. The configuration problem becomes more serious as an enterprise network grows by merging multiple remote sites or by supporting a large number of mobile end-hosts. Deploying enterprise-wide Ethernet, however, cannot solve this problem because Ethernet bridging does not scale.

As an alternative, we propose a scalable and efficient zero-configuration architecture (SEIZE) for enterprise networks. SEIZE provides "plug-and-play" capability via flat addressing and yet allows for scalability and efficiency through a combination of shortest-path routing and hash-based location resolution. Networking nodes perform location resolution on an on-demand basis and can cache the results to optimize routing paths and to avoid redundant resolution as well.

We implemented a SEIZE prototype system using a collection of Click modular router elements and the XORP routing protocol daemon. For evaluation, we run the system on Emulab with real enterprise traffic traces. Our experiments show that SEIZE exhibits near-optimal path efficiency, while limiting the number of host information entries replicated over a network and reducing the control overhead as much as two orders of magnitude compared with the conventional Ethernet bridging.

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